


Letting Go

by classic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Backstory, Comfort, Crying, Dialogue Heavy, Kissing, M/M, Military Backstory, Minor Character Death, Sam Wilson Backstory, Sam Wilson Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classic/pseuds/classic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam finally tells Steve about his relationship with Riley and their evening is much more emotional than either had originally bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting Go

          Steve and Sam were on week five of the great search for Bucky. Although Natasha showed up at whatever hotel they were staying at every once in a while to offer information on the Red Room and give them helpful police reports and classified information she had found, Steve and Sam were mostly on their own. Tonight they were in a small sleepy town in Massachusetts that their last lead had brought them to, but turned out to be just another dead end. Sam could tell that Steve was pretty discouraged so he tried to distract him with food and the promise of sex, but Steve had other ideas.

         “What did he look like?” Steve asked, trying to wheedle Sam into talking about Riley, a topic Sam almost always avoided.

         “You saw his picture” Sam offered in reply and took another big bite of pizza.

         “Yeah, but what did he look like to you?” Steve sometimes asked these questions that reminded Sam just the kind of romantic the other man was. It made Sam smile so he decided to indulge him.

          “He looked like a cocky kid with the dopiest smile, a great head of hair, and a gorgeous smattering of freckles if you got close enough. He had a hot mouth too. I know that sounds weird, but every time I kissed him it felt like he was running a fever” Steve nodded cataloging this information and imagining how he might draw Riley if he had a pencil and pad of paper before him.

          “Tell me how you met?” Steve was almost finished with his fourth slice of pizza and was already reaching for the next as he settled back to hear what he hoped would be an entertaining story.

          “I was 26 and at the end of my first tour, he was just starting his first. I met him the day after his 24th birthday, he showed up with a bag of weed he had gotten from his previous squad. I had never been high before, not even in college because I knew I wanted to join the Air Force. But here comes this eager pretty boy who wanted to shotgun for his birthday, how the fuck was I supposed to deny him.” Sam was lost in the memory of the night he met Riley so he didn’t notice Steve stealing the crust of his last slice of pizza that he had planned to finish later.

          “Sounds like he was a lot of fun.” Steve comments around a mouthful of garlic drenched crust.

          “Yep, He was the youngest in our squadron and acted like a mischievous brat half the time. Everyone called him my kid, and would let me know when he was up to something. When my tour was up I didn’t expect to feel like shit coming home, thought I would be ready after almost a year. That was when I realized I was in love him.” Now satiated Steve began to listen more attentively. Sam had never divulged this much information about Riley. Steve had assumed they loved each other but Sam hadn’t actually said it until just then.

          “When did you start dating?”

          “We didn’t officially call it dating until we were both on our second tour. We had fooled around quite a bit before. But it was difficult for us, we were on and off a lot. He had a girlfriend back home.” Steve furrowed his brow in confusion no longer following, Sam tried to elaborate.

          “Riley had internalized a lot of homophobia. He still believed he was straight even though he had dated a few guys before me. He became a bit paranoid during our relationship that he would get caught and discharged and he was terrified of having to explain why he was discharged to his family. He told me once that every time we so much as kissed  he felt like he was just digging his hole to hell a little deeper.”

          “Ouch, that’s…” Steve broke off, he didn’t know if there was an adjective to describe how Sam must have felt.   
          “Catholic guilt.” Sam finished for him. “I came out when I was 16, my family and friends were supportive, I never had to deal with what he had to go through as a kid. I’m sure you can imagine, it probably wasn’t unlike growing up in the 30s. Sometimes I felt like I was keeping him in a relationship he didn’t want to be in. He was so young, sometimes I thought maybe he was just severely confused. But then things would get better and he would call me his future husband  and we’d talk about having kids together.” Steve moved closer to Sam on the couch and took the other’s hand in his to rub soothing circles on his skin with his thumb. Sam reached up to swipe at a tear making its way down his cheek.

           “Sorry, I haven’t talked about this in years. It’s still painful for me.”

           “Of course, no need to apologize Sam.”  

           “I met his family for the first time after he died. God, it was a nightmare. I couldn’t reconcile the Riley I knew with the Riley they knew, and they didn’t want any part of the Riley I knew. Why would they, I was the man who allowed their son to die. It was the constant unspoken question, ‘why didn’t you save him Sam?’ ‘why are you here and not our boy’. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn't even tell them how much he meant to me without causing more pain. I left the morning of the funeral after I met his girlfriend. She was a wreck, she was the only one who could ask me the tough questions. It was too much to take. I left. I let my best friend die and didn’t even have the decency to give him a proper goodbye.” Sam began to cry openly now, hiding his face into the palm of the hand Steve wasn’t holding. Steve pulled Sam to his chest and let the other man cry into his shoulder.

          “Sam, it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done. You have to know that there was no way you could have helped.” Sam sniffs as he quiets down a little bit. He couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed breaking down in front of Captain America, a man who had lost so much in so little time and yet seemed to be able to just soldier on. But instead of comparing Sam’s heartache with Steve’s own, Steve ran his fingers softly through his hair and rocked the other man until he was able to stop crying.

          "After Ma died I went to her funeral. It didn’t feel like closure to me. She had been sick for years before her death so I had plenty of time to say goodbye, but it still doesn’t feel like I every really got to. Even if you had stayed, I doubt you would have felt any different. You were in an impossible situation and you tried, no one would fault you for that so you can’t be so hard on yourself.” Steve looked down you gently pulled Sam up by his chin to see if the other man was listening to him,

           “And as for the survivor’s guilt, there hasn’t been a day since Bucky's fall  that I haven’t imagined a way that I could have saved him even though I am consciously aware of the fact that I couldn’t have done anything. So I guess that part never really goes away, but sometimes it helps to talk about it.” Sam stared up at Steve. All of this he knew, he told people the same thing on a daily basis at the VA, but to have the man that he loved repeat the same sentiment back to him with total acceptance of his pain was some how much more powerful.

          “I love you, Steve” He whispered it almost inaudibly but he knew that the super solider had heard him. Sam hadn’t expected the evening to go this way, in fact he thought that would have ended up in the exact opposite arrangement, but it turned out he needed this tonight.

          “Come, let‘s get you to bed.” Steve was still being incredibly gentle as he lifted Sam. Although  he hadn’t felt tired before he realized how exhausted he was just from crying.

          Steve helped Sam strip and get under the covers before he did the same. Sam automatically gravitated towards his warm body and curled into him. Steve kept a reassuring hand in Sam’s hair and whispered unintelligibly to him until he fell asleep. Sam simply relished the feeling of being taken care of and protected by another. It felt as though an invisible layer between the two had at last been broken after Sam was finally able to confide in Steve about Riley.

 

 


End file.
